BACKlikeWEneverLEFT

I want to apologize to everyone, I have been quite busy doing a bunch of things in my professional as well as personal life.  I still have deep thoughts and debates with anyone willing to listen, so my mind is always working.  As I mentioned I have been busy professionally, started a new job last week; been in training this week. The training this week is actually the reason for this post.  The training I was in consists of gang intervention, but it has been more than that for me.  There was a section speaking on deaths, funerals, and vigils.  This segment really caught my attention, and got my thoughts flowing again. Essentially it was a conversation about the celebration of life, as oppose to the grievance of death.  The celebration of life really clicked to me, and how people tend to view funerals.  Most view the wake, the funeral, the burial as a sad time… Rightfully so, a love one was lost.  Very rarely do people view death as a “celebration.”  Ironically my co writer happen to write a post about time.  After reading his post (Can I Have Some More Please) it just added fuel to the fire, felt I could share my thoughts about a few things.

Unfortunately in life people die everyday, somebody’s love one is taken away from them; tears are shed and emotions run heavy.  In retrospect; people are born everyday, a new life is given,  tears are shed and emotions still run high.  The birth of a child is a celebratory moment, balloons are blown, everybody is sharing smiles, enjoying the moment. “Enjoying the moment,” that point when you realize something amazing just transpired. Flip back to death, most people involved aren’t  “enjoying that moment.” As a person who has lost people,  I can understand the reasons.  Death can happen at any moment, to anyone we love. Due to the sporadic nature of it, this is the reason death is not something people tend to celebrate. As I walk through the moments of loosing a love one, I look at in three major parts.  First there is the discovery; the initial warning, the phone call… The moment when you find out the news you didn’t want to hear.   This stage is probably the most harmful, due to how random it can be.  The conversation   is never goes smoothly, and everything that ensues after is full of emotion and distraught.  Next there is the acknowledgment phase, the part where the wake, the funeral or the burial happens.  This phase is when you fully accept and acknowledge the person is gone.  During this stage the real mourning occurs, and people try to overcome as best as possible.  The last stage is the realization phase, the aftermath, that moment when you realize your loved one left before you were ready for them to go.  During the realization phase a number of things can happen; the rethinking of time spent with each other, the voice of the person, the random message you didn’t delete.  A number of things tends to happen, in order for people to deal with their lost more effectively.  One of those things that is traditional is placing flowers at the burial site.

A majority of people visit the burial grounds after death, to pay their respect and show their admiration.   Flowers are one of the biggest signs of respect, and it shows that you miss that person.  Flowers are also a sign of appreciation, that people offer during a person’s life, i.e. graduating, signs of love, or random deeds of goodness.  Unfortunately people tend to extend these acts of kindness far to late,  often allowing love ones to leave without the proper recognition.  Far to frequently I hear people being remorseful, due to lack of appreciation that forgot to pay forward.  One of the biggest cliches I hear “you don’t know how good something is until it’s gone,”  really makes sense to me as I walk through different stages of life.  This doesn’t just apply to death in sense of one passing, but death in the notion of something ending.  As a human, we tend to live our lives selfish in this aspect, meaning we fail to show appreciation while we can.  Flowers are not just meant to be viewed as “flowers” but as tokens of appreciation, respect, and love.  With that said, we as a people need to do better at giving the flowers before they go.  I, myself am guilty of this and have been actively working on improving, but people that matter to you need to hear and know you appreciate them.

As my homie stated, time is something that we spend fast and will not be replenished.  Before people leave, we waste that time finding reasons not to give flowers, but when they go, we find the time to give them all they ever needed.  It’s backwards to me, and I am understanding that more and more.  Giving the flowers before they go, will make that bond you share more meaningful.  When you give the flowers after, they aren’t able to say anything back, which makes me wonder why didn’t I say anything before?  Just because a person is smiling on the outside, there is no clue what could be going on the inside.  If you give the flowers when you can, those tokens can stretch further than anyone can imagine.  The flowers aren’t meant to make you feel better, but the person you are offering them to.  Offer them when they are still around, whatever the relationship may be, inform them when you can.  On that note, I want to give my flowers while I can.  Thank you to everyone who continues to read our site,  I truly appreciate how receptive everyone has been.  I hope to get my flowers to everyone while I can, and my readers count as well.  Take to time out to celebrate a person while you can, before the opportunity leaves.